"...all of the performances on the CD are exceptional"
- Jennifer Bain, CAML Review
CANADIAN COMPOSERS
PORTRAITS
SERIES
No one can say with certainty who the first
Canadian composer may have been. What is
beyond doubt is the explosion of composition
in the years following the Second World War.
A generation of pioneering professional
composers firmly established Canada’s place
on the world’s musical map.
Centrediscs’ Canadian Composers Portrait
Series documents the emergence of this
distinctly Canadian music. Each release in
this retrospective of the last fifty years of
Canadian composition is dedicated to a
single composer. These unique CD sets
combine full-length documentaries on the
composers’ lives and music with a selection
of some of their most important works. The
best performances available of these works
are taken from CBC, private and commercial
sources and, in the case of archival
recordings, are restored using the latest
available techniques.
We dedicate this project to our composers
and to all those who have an interest in
Canada’s musical heritage.
CD1: Beecroft documentary produced and prepared by Eitan Cornfield [54:43]
Documentaire sur Beecroft produit et présenté par Eitan Cornfield
1. Opening
2. He was a ham radio operator
3. I adored Norma, I just loved her
4. She was the first woman composer
5. Her most successful piece
6. This was a whole new world
7. When I was in Italy
8. Norma Beecroft kept abreast of the technology
9. In 1975 Norma Beecroft went back
10. Norma Beecroft’s catalogue isn’t large
CD2: Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 [7:40]
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Victor Feldbrill (conductor/chef d’orchestre)
Recorded / Enregistré: 1972, Massey Hall, Toronto
Producer / Réalisateur: Richard Coulter
Engineer / Preneur de son: J.W. Woods
From Dreams of Brass [16:00]
Barry Morse (speaker/narrateur)
Mary Morrison (soprano)
CBC Toronto Chorus & Symphony Orchestra
John Avison (conductor/chef d’orchestre)
Recorded / Enregistré: 1966, Toronto
Engineer / Preneur de son: J.W. Woods
Collage ’76 [10:40]
New Music Concerts Ensemble, Toronto
Robert Aitken (flute/flûte, conductor/chef d’orchestre)
Recorded by / Enregistré par: BBC Radio, London, 1976
Jeu II [8:54]
Robert Aitken (flute/flûte)
Rivka Golani (viola/alto)
Ronald Lynch (digital processing/traitements numériques)
Recorded / Enregistré: 1990, DACARY Hall, York University, Toronto
Producer / Réalisateur: Norma Beecroft
Engineer / Preneur de son: Ronald Lynch
Accordion Play [13:00]
Joseph Petric (accordion/accordéon)
Bill Brennan & George Morgan (percussion)
Recorded live / Enregistré en direct: 1990, Sound Symposium, St, John’s, Newfoundland
Producer / Réalisateur: David Jaeger
Engineer / Preneur de son: David Quinney
Amplified String Quartet with Tape [12:44]
Accordes String Quartet
(Fujiko Imajishi & Marie Berard, violins/violons; Douglas Perry, viola/alto;
David Hetherington, cello/violoncelle)
Recorded live / Enregistré en direct: 27/xi/1994, Premier Dance Theatre, Toronto
Producer / Réalisateur: David Jaeger
Engineer / Preneur de son: David Quinney
Music used in the documentary in order of appearance. All music by Norma Beecroft unless otherwise noted. /
Les oeuvres dans ce documentaire sont entendues dans l’ordre suivant. La musique est de Norma Beecroft
sauf avis contraire:
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 3. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Ritual Fire Dance (Manuel de Falla). RCA.
Fantasy for Strings. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Concerto in F (George Gershwin). Radio broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Images for Wind Quintet. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Five Songs for Dark Voice (Harry Somers). RCI-286.
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1. Audat LP.
Tre Pezzi Brevi. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Kontakte (Karlheinz Stockhausen). Wergo 286009-2.
Linear Contrasts (Vladimir Ussachevsky). CRI CD813.
Rasas II. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Two Went to Sleep. RCI ACM 13.
From Dreams of Brass. RCI ACM 13.
Cantorum Vitae. RCI ACM 13.
Amplified String Quartet with Tape. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
Collage ’76. RCI ACM 13.
Piece for Bob. RCI ACM 13.
Evocations: Images of Canada. Digital tape/bande numérique.
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 3. CBC broadcast/radiodiffusion.
THE COMPOSER
Norma Marian Beecroft was born in Oshawa,
Ontario, on 11 April 1934. Her parents were both
active in the artistic field. Her father, Julian
Balfour Beecroft, was a musician and inventor,
and a pioneer in the development of magnetic
tape. Her mother, Eleanor Beecroft Stewart, was
trained in music and dance, and enjoyed a
successful career as an actress. The second of
five offspring, Norma has enjoyed an active life
in music, as a composer, producer, broadcaster
and administrator. Some of her siblings have
pursued occupations in the arts and/or technology,
Jane (b. 1932) was a poet and painter, Eric
(b.1935) was active in film, and Charles Andrew
Stuart (b. 1942) is a noted documentarist in the
field of natural sciences.
Norma Beecroft’s early musical studies began
with the piano, taking piano lessons from Aladar
Ecsedy (1950-52), then between 1952-58 with
Gordon Hallett and Weldon Kilburn. At the same
time she studied composition with John Weinzweig.
The recipient of a bursary from the Royal
Conservatory of Music in 1957-58, she began
flute studies with Keith Girard as well. She
continued her composition studies on scholarship
at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, with
Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss, and in 1959
was accepted into the Corso di Perfezionamento
at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, under
Goffredo Petrassi, where she graduated in 1961.
The same year she was the recipient of an
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship.
During her three years in Europe she attended
lectures given by Bruno Maderna at Darmstadt,
Germany, and at the Dartington School of Music
in England, and she continued her flute studies
with Severino Gazzelloni. Upon her return to
Canada, she attended the electronic music
classes of Myron Schaeffer at the University of
Toronto, and in 1964 spent the summer working
with Mario Davidovsky at the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center, New York.
Concurrent with her composing life, Beecroft
has enjoyed a long association with the world of
broadcasting. She was first attracted to the
then-new world of television and joined the CBC
in 1954 as a script assistant for music programs,
and later music consultant. After her European
studies, she returned to CBC, working as a
script assistant 1962-3, then successively as
talent relations officer 1963-4, national program
organizer for radio 1964-6, and producer 1966-9.
In 1969 she resigned from CBC, and began a
freelance career as producer and commentator
on contemporary music. She was the host of the
weekly series “Music of Today” for many years,
and her freelance productions included many
documentaries commissioned by the CBC on
major Canadian composers of the latter 20th
Century, including John Weinzweig, Harry Somers,
Harry Freedman, Barbara Pentland, Jean
Coulthard-Adams, Bruce Mather, Gilles Tremblay,
etc. In 1976 her documentary “The Computer in
Music” received a Major Armstrong Award for
excellence in FM broadcasting. Among her
numerous freelance projects was the preparation
in 1975 of 13 broadcast records “Music Canada”
from tapes in the libraries of RCI and CAPAC,
and she contributed numerous documentaries
on her Canadian colleagues for the Anthology of
Canadian Composers series. Beecroft produced
electronic music for the Stratford Festival
productions of Macbeth (1982) and Midsummer
Night’s Dream (1983), and incidental music for
the TVO series “Fish On”.
Many of Beecroft’s compositions have been
commissioned by organizations and individuals
including Ten Centuries Concerts (Elegy and
Two Went to Sleep), the Societe de Musique
Contemporaine du Quebec (Rasas 1), the
National Arts Centre Orchestra (Improvvisazioni
Concertanti No 2), the CBC (Rasas II, 11 and 7
for 5+, Piece for Bob, Accordion Play, Evocations),
New Music Concerts (Rasas III, Collage ’76, Jeu
II, Jeu IV), Rivka Golani (Troissonts, Jeu III).
Many pieces combine electronically produced or
altered sounds together with live instruments.
She regards her particular use of electronic
music as an extension of vocal and/or
instrumental sounds rather than a contrast of
timbres. From Dreams of Brass (1963-4) is the
first example of this technique, and her large
scale work, the ballet Hedda (1982), is a later
illustration. Her musical aesthetic was first
influenced by the music of Debussy, then later by
her teachers — Weinzweig, Petrassi and
Maderna, and during her European years, she
was impressed by the work of Karlheinz
Stockhausen, one of the first composers to
combine electronic music with live instruments.
THE COMPOSITIONS
Beecroft has long been active in the promotion
of Canadian and contemporary music in addition
to her broadcasting and composing career. She
was President in 1956-7 of Canadian Music
Associates (the Toronto concert committee of
the Canadian League of Composers), and in
1965-8 President of Ten Centuries Concerts. In
1971, she co-founded (with Robert Aitken) New
Music Concerts, and was its President and
General Manager until 1989. For her service to
Canadian music, in 1996 she was awarded a
Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, from York
University, Toronto.
Norma Beecroft is a member of the Canadian
League of Composers and an associate of the
Canadian Music Centre. In 2002, she was
awarded an Honorary Membership in the
Canadian Electro-acoustic Community.
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961)
This one movement piece was written during
the composer’s final year of studies in 1961 at
the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. It is
dedicated to her teacher, the distinguished
Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi.
Based on a 12-note series, the work moves from
a slow and lyrical beginning to a faster more
dramatic tempo, leading to a brief cadenza for
the soloist and concluding in a quiet manner.
The writing for the flute is demanding for the
performer, who plays almost without interruption.
Although every sound is notated precisely, the
writing for the soloist intends to convey the
spirit of improvisation against a background of
sustained orchestral passages.
This recording was produced as part of the
celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the
Toronto Symphony in 1972.
From Dreams of Brass (1963-64)
The composer has supplied the following note:
“The cantata was originally conceived for
performance in a large hall with the orchestra
divided into sections, the chorus and three
loudspeakers all strategically placed to work
either in groups, or opposite one another. As the
central figure, the narrator ties all the elements
together. The electronic music, composed in the
summer of 1964 at the Electronic Music Studio
of Columbia-Princeton University, New York, is
used primarily as an extension of existing
orchestral and vocal sounds, although certain
passages have their own independent existence.”
The poetic text by Jane Beecroft is a “discussion
of Love as it exists and acts in the universe,”
writes the author, “but particularly concerning
Man, who, unlike the rest of the universe, is free
to reject or accept Love (God), bringing upon
himself either utter aloneness, or a beatitude
without bounds.”
Collage ’76 (1976)
As the title may imply, Collage ’76 is basically
the superimposition of two of Norma Beecroft’s
works, Piece for Bob and 11 and 7 for 5 +. To
this combination is added fragments from other
of the composer’s instrumental works of the
preceding ten years. Although the players are
divided into three groups, the flute plays a
predominant and unifying role. The tape material
includes electronically altered instrumental
sounds and computer generated sequences, the
latter using the POD 6 program of Barry Truax,
produced at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht,
and “Outperform”, a computer synthesis program
written by David Jaeger operating at the
University of Toronto Computer Centre.
The reason for the use of musical collage was
due to the urgent need of New Music Concerts
of Toronto for an ensemble piece for its 1976
Spring tour of Europe: it was a fast solution to
the problem of limited time. Collage ’76 was
written in one month and performed many times
on the tour. The work was commissioned by New
Music Concerts with the assistance of the
Ontario Arts Council.
Jeu II (1985)
Jeu II is the second of a series in which the
composer explores and transforms ‘found’ music.
In this second piece, the composer pays tribute
to two great composers of the past, J.S. Bach
and Alban Berg, on the occasion of their 300th
and 100th birthdays respectively.
The solo flute and solo viola are transformed
during a live performance through the use of
AMS (Automated Music Systems) digital delays,
pitch changer and reverberation units. The 6
channel tape forming the continuum was created
from a multi-layering of the harmonies found in
the opening strains of the solo violin in Berg’s
Violin Concerto. Other fragments incorporated
into Jeu II are taken from: the Allemande from
the A Minor Flute Sonata of Bach, his Prelude
from Suite 1 for Solo Cello, and the Violin
Concerto of Berg.
Jeu II was created in collaboration with recording
engineer Ronald Lynch, and commissioned by New
Music Concerts with the assistance of the Canada
Council for the Arts. It is dedicated to Goffredo
Petrassi on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
Accordion Play (1989)
Accordion Play was commissioned by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for
accordionist Joseph Petric, who gave the work
its world premiere in July 1990 at the Sound
Symposium in St. John’s, Newfoundland. It is
scored for accordion and two percussion, and
bears a deliberate resemblance to an earlier
Beecroft composition Troissonts for solo viola
and percussion, a piece which inspired Mr. Petric
to request a work of similar dynamics and
accompanying instrumentation.
Accordion Play is based on two main ideas:
a 4-note motif exposed in long electronic-like
tones at the beginning, and semitone clusters,
sometimes broken into fragments and sometimes
played in a chord-like manner. The piece is
somewhat whimsical in its sharp contrasts of
mood and colour.
Amplified String Quartet with Tape (1991-92)
Commissioned by the Music Gallery in Toronto
with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council,
the String Quartet was premiered by New Music
Concerts in its 1994-95 season on a program
celebrating the composer’s 60th birthday.
The Quartet relates to an earlier Beecroft
composition, Cantorum Vitae (1980-81), in
that it uses the same melodic material. Both
compositions were written in response to a
personal upheaval in the composer’s life, and
are dedicated to her husband Ronald Turner.
The tape in the work is used as a kind of canon
to the string quartet, acting as a reminiscence
of the past. The electronic material was produced
by the composer using a digital software program,
Performer, and a Roland D70 sythesizer.
Credits
Documentary Producer & Master Tape Preparation /
Réalisateur du documentaire et préparation de la bande maîtresse: Eitan Cornfield
Audio restoration / Restauration audio : Graham Newton
Canadian Music Centre / Centre de musique canadienne : Elisabeth Bihl, Executive Director / Directrice générale
Centrediscs & CMC Distribution Service /
Centredisques et Service de distribution du CMC: Richard Truhlar, Manager / Gérant
Documentary series executive producer /
Productrice déléguée de la série de documentaires : Donna Cressman-Dubois
Album Design / Conception de la pochette: Marc LaFoy, Screen Images
Liner Notes / Notes d’explication: Norma Beecroft
Translation / Traduction: Véronique Robert
Photograph / Photographie: John Reeves
Persons speaking in the documentary in order of appearance / Les personnes témoignant dans ce documentaire
sont entendues dans l’ordre suivant : Norma Beecroft, Eitan Cornfield, Harry Somers, Stuart Beecroft, John
Weinzweig, Helen Weinzweig, Robert Aitken, Gordon Burwash, Harry Freedman, Mary Morrison, David Jaeger.
This Centrediscs recording was made possible through the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the
Arts and the Government of Canada through the Canada Music Fund/ Cette enregistrement Centredisques a
bénéficié de l’appui financier du Conseil des Arts du Canada et du gouvernement du Canada par l’entremise
du Fonds de la musique du Canada.
CP 2003 Centrediscs / Centredisques
All rights reserved by the Canadian Music Centre.
Tous droits réservés Centre de musique canadienne
Manufactured under license from CBC/SRC. Manufacturé sous license de SRC/CBC.
C Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Société Radio-Canada
Made in Canada / Fabriqué au Canada.